With just five games remaining in the regular season, the Oswego State men’s basketball team finds itself in a close SUNYAC race in the standings with the first round of the conference tournament less than two weeks away.
Oswego State (15-5, 9-4 SUNYAC) currently sits in fourth place in the league. Ahead of the Lakers in the standings are SUNY Oneonta (15-5, 11-2 SUNYAC) in third place, SUNY Potsdam (17-4, 12-2 SUNYAC) in second place and The College at Brockport (19-3, 14-1 SUNYAC) in first place. Also, just slightly behind the Lakers in fifth place is SUNY Cortland (13-7, 7-6 SUNYAC).
Three of the final five games for the Lakers are against all of the teams they trail in the SUNYAC standings. Although these three games may appear to be more important on paper in terms of the standings, each of the last five games for the Lakers are all of equal importance.
“All five games are important because typically, in the nine years I’ve coached here, you look at the end of the year and there always seems to be a tiebreaker. Or there’s one game separating all these teams,” Oswego State head coach Jason Leone said.
The Lakers have treated every single game on their schedule this season the same way: they want to go out and win every night and perform at a high level.
“Each of the 18 [SUNYAC] games play its own individual role in where you end up,” Leone said. “I know it is very easy to look at these teams that are above us in the standings thinking that is the only way you make up ground, but those three games don’t mean anything if you stub your toe against these schools that happen to be below us in the standings.”
A large reason these final games are looked at as being so important, is that higher seeds have a home-court advantage during their matchups in the conference tournament.
“Clearly you’d rather play at home, but I have always approached this thing with our team in terms of when I talk to them. I say, ‘Our first thing is, we want to clinch and get into the playoffs.’ We technically have not done that yet but it looks like we are in a pretty good spot,” Leone said. “After you check that box off, you concentrate on getting a home game. If you clinch a home game, the next thing is getting a bye then after that you try and win the whole thing. There’s been years where we’ve gone on the road and won the championship.”
The championship game is definitely where the Lakers want to find themselves, and they are no stranger to it, as they are the defending SUNYAC champions. Most teams would say there is an added pressure that comes with being the defending champions, but a player like senior Joe Sullivan is no stranger to these games and is calm and locked in at this point of the year.
“I don’t think it adds pressure, but everyone is aggravated from last year because we basically ran through the SUNYAC,” Sullivan said. “It was difficult, don’t get me wrong, but we really controlled our destiny last year and this year is a little different with a lot of younger kids. We just have to get back to having a higher energy.”
Players like Sullivan are expected to be leaders at this time of year, being a senior, and Sullivan has done just that. Leone spoke highly regarding Sullivan and his play of late.
“Joe Sullivan, similar to Tyler [Pierre] last year, has really taken a step forward where he is playing his best basketball at this time of year,” Leone said. “He is playing much better around the basket compared to what he did early in the year and last year.”
Another senior for the Lakers is guard Brandan Gartland, who like Sullivan, was a part of the SUNYAC Championship team last season. Gartland knows the competition is tough and every game will be difficult, but also believes in the team.
“We are taking it one game at a time obviously, and then we just have to treat every game like it is our last game,” Gartland said. “A lot of those teams are really good ahead of us, but we can compete with anybody.”
Despite playing 20 games so far this season, the final two weeks for the Lakers should still be looked at as a chance to get better and really click as a team heading into the postseason.
“We have two important weeks here where we can really improve,” Leone said. “I have had teams that, one year won the thing [SUNYAC Championship] as a three seed and we also won two road games to win the thing. We were not playing well the last week of the regular season.We just found something that last week during the conference tournament. That improvement can happen at the blink of an eye.”
There are certainly younger players on the Lakers this season who were not on the roster last year, but seniors like Gartland have been out there every day leading them and spreading advice on what to do and not do at this point of the season.
“Stay mentally tough, stay in the game,” Gartland said. “If you make a bad play, there’s always the next play you can go get. So just don’t be set on one play.”
Leone knows of the importance of each game and the competition each matchup brings, but the maturity of this team, just as teams he has coached in the past, has not gone unnoticed.
“One thing about our teams in the past, and this year is no different, is our team really does a good job of maintaining great focus at this time of the year and I think that is a big element of having success at this time of year,” Leone said. “Take this thing and try and get everyone better, be together and cohesive and you have to be able to handle the emotion that goes with this thing.”
Graphic by Patrick Higgins | The Oswegonian
